


5 Alarm Fire

by Vexfulfolly



Category: Daredevil (TV), Iron Fist (TV), The Defenders (Marvel TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Gen, just something soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-27
Updated: 2019-08-27
Packaged: 2020-09-27 14:57:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20409658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vexfulfolly/pseuds/Vexfulfolly
Summary: "I just set the fire alarm in our building off again... Sorry. I know its like the fourth time this week.."Matt + Danny = shenanigans





	5 Alarm Fire

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hermesmaximoff](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hermesmaximoff/gifts).

> For @mattaretto, my lovely daredevil exchange match.

“I just set off the fire alarm in our building again, sorry! And before you say anything, yes, I’m well aware that this is the fourth time this week.”

If Matt were a man with any less self control the kid that was standing in his doorway, “neighbor”, apparently, would’ve been evicted months ago. Although he didn’t check his alarm clock, because he was too busy scrambling out of bed like a lunatic, a quick brush of his wristwatch told him it was approximately a quarter to four in the morning. AM.

In The Morning.

The god awful screeching of the fire alarm that nearly killed him out of fright, had finally stopped, and Matt could hear himself think again. Well, almost. There was that pesky neighbor, standing in the way of the door, talking four hundred miles a minute, hardly allowing a word in edgewise.

“I’m just really sorry to keep waking you, and, well, setting off the fire alarm, but I need a favor… Can I borrow some sugar?”

If Matt could see, he’d feel like he was staring at a wall. He was tired. He had court in, approximately, four hours. He hadn’t slept well all week. This guy obviously was a mess. There was no way in Hell’s Kitchen this encounter was going to turn out well, so he utilized as much of his Murdock charm as possible.

“No.”

“What do you mean, no? Who doesn’t have sugar?”

Accosted, and almost embarrassed on his neighbor’s behalf, he tried to close the door. “Me. And you apparently. Goodnight.”

Neighbor-Man put his hand against the door to keep it from closing, desperation now palpable. “Please, man! My girlfriend is coming over tomorrow and I promised I’d make food.” After staring at Matt’s blank faced expression, he mumbled “it’s make-up dinner. Please, dude, I’m begging you.”

The derisive and exasperated head tilt Matt gave Neighbor-Man conveyed all of the pent up exhaustion he was carrying. The words, iron heavy, fell from his lips. “Fine. You can have a look around, but you need to put everything back. Don’t mess with my stuff.”

Matt took a step away from the door and Neighbor-Man shamelessly scrambled towards his kitchen. It took nearly a minute and a half of awkward tinkling and quick-paced shuffling of things in his cupboards before the situation really hit Neighbor-Man. Matt could tell when he realized, because the rapid searching slowed down for a moment.

“Not that I’m complaining, or anything, but why are you making me look? Wouldn’t you know if… you had any sugar or not?” The silence that descended on the room was clue enough that Neighbor-Man was looking his way. With Matt’s back leaning against the wall, arms crossed, and Foggy’s dubbed Shitty Red Glasses, he could only imagine how he looked. Not blind, apparently.

“Well, considering I can’t see anything, you looking seemed faster. I don’t remember ever coming across any sugar, but if it could help you out, I figured you’d have the best chance of finding some,” Matt sighed.

Instead of gaping like most people did, or asking stupid-intrusive questions, Neighbor-Man took it in stride. In fact, he even stifled a chuckle. “This is gonna sound, probably, mean-spirited, but I thought you were a bit of a jerk— not turning on the lights in here ‘n all. I was really glad I'd decided to bright my phone--flashlight and all.” Perhaps it was the situation, the hour, or his company, but Matt let off a bark of laughter. He didn’t necessarily feel the need to apologize, but he did want to say something. Luckily for his socially-awkward self, Neighbor-Man, ever the chatterbox, prattled on.

“Well, you don’t have any sugar, sorry for keeping you up! I’m gonna go annoy our other neighbors until someone has something I can borrow.” He (seemingly) grinned. Before Matt even realized, Neighbor-Man’s footfalls were by the door of his apartment. “Promise I won’t keep bothering you,” he added from the hallway. Instead of the relief Matt was expecting to feel, his heartbeat hitched for a moment, as something itched at his mind.

“Hey!” He called out, his feet carrying him just as fast as he could navigate, “Didn’t get which neighbor you were.” Matt’s head popped out of the doorway, turning slightly towards the sound of soft laughter from his right.

“Danny Rand, from apartment 223. Which is… four apartments to the left, right side of the hall— if you’re ever interested in getting back at me for… this.”

It was Matt’s turn to laugh. “I’ll keep that in mind, Danny Rand, from 223. A word of advice: Jones, 217, I wouldn’t knock on her door at this hour unless you’re interested in going mysteriously missing.”

And with that, Matt closed the door. If he heard a muffled “Wait, I never got your name!” he chalked it up to Danny’s conversation with a new neighbor. And if Matt chuckled all the way back to his bedroom at the kicked puppy sigh he heard from outside the door, that would stay between him and God.

————

Matt would forget to tell Foggy about the about the encounter in the morning. It wouldn’t come up again until a week later when Foggy and Matt walked up to Matt’s apartment to find a single candle and an orange sitting on the floor.

“Matt, why is there a candle and… is that an orange? In front of your door?”

“I have absolutely no idea. Is there a note?”

“Uhh,” he leaned over and checked the ground. “Nope. Nadda.”

“Hm. I guess just blow it out, don’t want to start a fire.”

When Matt finally lays down to sleep that night, his mind wandering on the subject, he’ll come to the conclusion that the only person who maybe, even remotely, owed him anything would be self proclaimed Neighbor-Man, Danny from 223. He also seemed like the only person who’d think the blind guy would appreciate the gesture.

But who in their right mind says ‘thanks’ or ‘sorry’ with a fire hazard and a clementine?

————

Later that week, Matt will have lunch with Jessica to discuss the risk of a potential client. Nelson & Murdock may be a new practice that needs every client to stay afloat, but there are just some clients that not even they should take on. ‘Should’ being the operative word.

In the middle of their conversation she did that thing where a Conversational Question is really an Interrogative Statement. “I’m guessing you’ve had the pleasure of meeting Danny,” she grimaced. “Apparently, you told him I’d kill him if he ever knocked on my door.”

Hardly missing a beat, not bothering to show surprise or intonation, Matt nodded. “I didn’t tell him you’d kill him if he ever knocked on your door, I just strongly suggested not to do it at four in the morning.”

Rolling her eyes in the most affectionate way possible, despite Matt being unable to see (the scoff being an eye-rolling-exclusive sound), she sneered, “You lawyers and mincing words. One of these days Murdock, you’re gonna get caught in something you can’t deal your way out of.”

Actually mustering a cheeky smile, Matt stole a fry from her plate before getting to his feet. “But today is not that day. See you around Jones.”

Matt didn’t stick around too long after bidding her goodbye, out of fear of the repercussions for stealing her food. (The blind joke was an added bonus that would surely earn him a punch later on.)

————

Not even two days later, Matt was up and pulling a bender for a current case. It was a rare case that they were the acting as the prosecution on, and in return for their saintly act, the defense tried to bury them in paper and memos.

He brought home the document reader from the office and had it reading out-loud, while he had a single headphone playing the contents of another document.

In hindsight, this was the worst idea Matt could have come up with. At the time, it was bloody brilliant. It was also worthwhile to mention that Matt was actually cooking himself dinner. He was “grilling” a burger in the panini press (“it’s a panini press, Fogs.” “No, Matt, it’s a double sided grill.” “You just described a panini press.”) Foggy and Karen had mysteriously found the funds to buy him at Christmas.

Too caught up in his documents to notice the suspicious smell of burning meat, it was an utter shock when the fire alarm started screaming. Abandoning the readers and whatever he was doing (he was tired, okay?), he scrambled over to the press and unplugged the thing from the wall. Fumbling ungracefully, he managed to get his hands on the broom Karen had ditched at his place, and began sweeping it across the ceiling til he found the fire alarm. He wound up, and swung. It took three solid tries before he whacked the thing right out of the ceiling and it shut right the hell up.

Heaving slightly out of panic, relief, and exertion, he hoped no one could hear him through the walls that suddenly felt tissue-paper thick. His anxious reprieve was quickly shattered when a familiar voice shouted, four rooms to the left, and two doors between, “It wasn’t me this time! I swear!” The following door slam felt fueled by an annoyance Matt would never know.

(Or maybe he would, because the resounding texts from Luke and Jessica about Danny, all some odd reiteration of “someone needs to teach that kid how to cook” or “get him a night job” were explanation enough. He wouldn’t correct them. But he also wouldn’t boldfaced lie.)

(But a lie of omission was almost as bad.)

————

The next morning, Matt would wake up and text Foggy to bring a candle to his place. No explanation, no wind up, no nothing. Surely enough, when Foggy’s taxi parked outside Matt’s building and he came in to collect his friend, Matt was ready.

“Can you light the candle and leave it outside 223?” He rushed.

The fiasco from the night before had rattled him and subsequently caused him to lose his place in the documents and, not willing to lose a single piece of data, he started over. Which was what was actively causing him to be late this morning.

Without so much as a verbal agreement or a grunt in acknowledgement, Foggy did as he was told. Shaking his head throughout the whole task, he couldn’t help the bemused smile that was growing across his face. Just as the wick caught flame, Matt came stumbling out of his apartment— three bags and all.

“Put this there too,” he called, before tossing it in Foggy’s vague location.

“It” being an onion, with a sticky note on it.

Sensing Foggy’s apprehension and confusion, Matt just shrugged his shoulders. “What? I didn’t have an orange— I know you don’t. Thought that would be good enough. Now let’s go, we’d best not be late.”

————

When Danny wakes up and leaves his apartment for work—work being the self-defense (Krav Maga) instructor at a local gym-slash-dojo hybrid— he found the sad attempts at a recreation of the shrine he’d left outside of Sugarless-Stranger’s door.

The onion made him laugh, but the note, computer typed on colorful paper, made him smile for the rest of the day. Even when as he stood there reading it at the same time Jessica left her apartment, her glare severe enough to peel skin.

“It wasn’t me last night, I promise!”

“Yeah, yeah, Sugar Boy. Whatever you say.”

‘—Matt Murdock. 218. Try not to start any more late night fires. I’ll do the same.’


End file.
